The rapid growth of digital communication has made it possible for all kinds of digital media items to be communicated amongst various types of wireless and wire line communication devices. For instance, the cellular or mobile telephone is no longer limited to telephonic voice communication and may include other means of digital communication, such as digital networking (i.e., Internet communication, text messaging, and the like). In addition, an increasing number of cellular telephones and other mobile wireless communication devices, such as portable computers, personal data assistants (PDAs) and the like, are being integrated with other means of capturing or producing digital media, such as digital cameras, digital audio recorders, digital video recorders and the like. Technological advances have made it possible for other digital devices, such as digital cameras, digital video recorders, digital audio devices and the like to be equipped with means for digital communication. As more and more digital devices possess the capability to digitally communicate with one another, the amount of digital media items that will be communicated amongst these devices will increase at an alarming rate.
In addition to the onset of more and more digital devices possessing digital communication capabilities and/or digital media capture capabilities; the digital storage capacity of these devices is constantly increasing. In the near future the majority of mobile digital communication terminals may well be equipped with storage capacity in the gigabyte range or greater, allowing these devices to store an enormous amount of digital data. In this environment it will no longer be prohibitive from a memory capacity standpoint to store a voluminous amount of large file types, such as video, audio or other multimedia files.
In the digital communication environment where more and more digital devices, both wireless and wired, are equipped with a means for digital communication and/or digital media capture and where the storage capacity of these devices has become seemingly endless, the digital communication device will encounter and store innumerable digital media files. As such, the digital communication device will desire a means to access, store, manage and further communicate these digital files in an efficient and user-friendly environment.
Wireless digital communication has recently experienced a growth due to the onset of new technologies, such as Bluetooth®, Wi-Fi (also known as 802.11) and other wireless local area networks (WLANs). These new technologies have provided an alternative in wireless networking over the previous fixed long-range microwave transmitter based delivery of network connections.
Bluetooth® is a wireless specification delivering short-range radio communication between electronic devices that are equipped with specialized Bluetooth-enabled semiconductor chips. It lets nearly all devices talk to one another by creating a common language between them. All electronic devices such as cellular phones, personal data assistants (PDAs), pagers, and any other device equipped with the Bluetooth-enabled chip can communicate and connect using Bluetooth® technology to form a private, personal area network (PAN). The devices carrying Bluetooth-enabled chips can easily transfer data at a rate of about 720 Kbps (kilobits per second) within 10 meters (33 feet) of range through walls, clothing and other objects. The interaction between devices occurs by itself without direct human intervention whenever they are within each other's range. In this process, the software technology embedded in the Bluetooth® transceiver chip, referred to as link controller, triggers an automatic connection to deliver and accept the data flow.
Whenever devices carrying Bluetooth® technology are within each other's range, they create an automatic ad hoc PAN (personal area network) called a piconet. In this arrangement, one device acts as the “master”, while other devices function as “slaves”. A piconet normally carries up to eight devices. The master device decides if a particular communication service is needed from a slave device. At the time when a connection is made between Bluetooth® devices, an exchange of unique Bluetooth identity called global ID takes place. A device global ID indicates its profile along with capability functions. Upon matching of the device profile a connection is made and as the devices exchange data, the Bluetooth® transceiver chip hops back and forth among frequencies.
Bluetooth's key features are robustness, low complexity, low power and low cost. Designed to operate in noisy frequency environments, the Bluetooth-enabled devices use a fast acknowledgement and frequency hopping scheme to make the link robust. Because Bluetooth-enabled devices operate in the unlicensed ISM band at 2.4 GHz, they avoid interference from other signals by hopping to a new frequency after transmitting or receiving a packet.
Wi-Fi (wireless fidelity) is used to describe products that follow the 802.11 set of standards developed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). The most popular of these is 802.11b, which operates in the 2.4 GHz band and transfers data at 11 megabits per second (Mbps). The emerging 802.11a standard operates in the 5 GHz band and can transfer data up to 54 Mbps. These technologies have a range of about 300 feet. Wi-Fi enabled devices can send and receive data wirelessly from any location equipped with Wi-Fi access. Wi-Fi access is provided through access points, installed within a Wi-Fi location, that transmit an RF signal to Wi-Fi enabled devices that are within range of the access point, which is about 300 feet. The speed of the transmission is governed by the speed of the pipeline fed into the access point.
These advanced wireless communication mediums make it possible for digital communication devices to communicate and transfer information between all devices within the wireless local area network (WLAN). Since recognition of devices in the WLAN is automatic, the amount of information that can be exchanged between communication devices in a WLAN environment is limitless.
Thus, the need exists to develop a system, application and method for sharing media files, correlating the metadata information related to the shared media files and assembling a collection of the shared. The desired application will be implemented on any digital communication device capable of communicating in some form of wireless local area network. A further need exists to develop an application that will provide the ability to automatically receive and transfer media files to other devices within the wireless local area network.